Electrical harnesses are produced by cutting insulated wire to the desired length, stripping the insulation from the cut ends and then applying terminals to one or both ends of the cut length. In the typical wire cutting and stripping process, wire is contained on a supply coil and fed in the desired increment of length to a cutting and stripping station by cooperating feed rolls or belts. The conventional cutting and stripping station includes a pair of opposed cutting and stripping units, each of which is composed of a central cutting knife and a pair of stripping knives which are located in spaced relation on either side of the cutting knife. After the predetermined length of wire has been fed through the cutting and stripping station, the cutting and stripping units are moved toward each other by fluid cylinders causing the cutting knives to sever the wire and simultaneously causing the stripping knives to cut the insulation.
Wire gripping units, located both upstream and downstream from the cutting and stripping station, grip the wire, as well as the cut length, and move the wire and cut length in opposite directions, thereby stripping the insulation from the ends of the wire and from the cut length.
In one common form of cutting and stripping units, the stripping knives are spaced from the cutting knife by spacer blocks and the entire assembly is clamped in a fixed position in a knife block. With this arrangement, the stripping knives are mounted in a fixed position relative to the cutting knives, so that both the cutting and stripping is accomplished in one operation. To change the strip length, the stripping knives must be manually removed from the knife blocks and relocated. Further, in order to accommodate wires of different gauges, it is necessary to utilize a different set of knives in the knife block.
It has also been proposed to manually adjust the position of the stripping knives relative to the cut-off knife via screws and slides. With this system, the position of the stripping knives can be adjusted without removal, but exact alignment is difficult.
A further proposal has been to separate the stripping knives from the cutting knives, so that cutting is done at one station and stripping at a second station. However, this is not only costly, but requires an additional process station for both the lead and trailing ends of the cut length of wire.